We have been looking at the effects of premarital sex on the life and marriage of Christian women. I think this is important to bring out, for many of us are too embarrassed to divulge the past or to ask questions.

Today I want to focus on how you can be helped. If you are a woman struggling with this issue, please take the time to carefully go through the things in the blog and begin to apply them to your heart and life. Some of them are difficult but well worth the risk.

If you were involved in fornication (sex outside of marriage) with your husband (or are involved now with the man you are engaged to).
Confess your sin to God. By participating in sexual sin you sinned against God. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and as such should not be used for sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:18-19)

Confess your sin to your husband- no matter who was the instigator, you can only clear your conscience by confessing your sin to your husband. You must ask his forgiveness for taking something that did not righteously belong to you in being united physically with him before marriage. You must also ask his forgiveness for tempting him to sin sexually with you by provocative clothing, being in a place or position that you knew would be tempting, for allowing any sort of foreplay including necking and heavy petting.
If you were sexually active with someone other than your husband before marriage, (and your husband knows about it) you must ask your husband’s forgiveness for giving away to another man something that was rightfully his. If he does not know about it telling him may cause more problems than it solves so wisdom is in order in this case.

Relieving the true guilt is important. You cannot begin to get relief for your conscience until you are willing to agree with God that what you have done is wrong and confess your sin and receive the forgiveness of your husband. You must also realize that her sin is not unforgivable before God.

There is no “forgiving myself” for sinning in this way. To say you have to forgive yourself is placing you in the position of being your own savior and implies you (wrongly) believe you can atone for your own sin. Please, you must accept that Jesus has by His sacrifice done all the atoning necessary.

Once you have dealt biblically with the guilt of your sin you can then begin the process of dealing with the other resulting sins.